Pavel Durov, the founder of Russia's most popular social network, is complaining that he has been thrown out of his company on a technicality and claims that the firm has been taken over by pro-Putin oligarchs.
Durov, who set up the social network VK (also known as VKontakte – ВКонтакте) in 2006, handed in his resignation last …

COMMENTS

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold?

Perhaps Mr Durov is an Alec Leamas character - formerly on the inside, now publicly thrown out to establish his bona fides. Or perhaps he's a good egg ridden down roughshod, and now to spend the rest of his days waving a Geiger counter over his cup of tea (at least when dining with old chums from the motherland).

And to think that back in the 90s we thought we'd miss the Cold War...

3) is not intelligent enough to not antagonize immensely more powerful people in a country where such people can have you legally extraordinarily rendered to a holding facility and kept there for the rest of your life - if they're feeling magnanimous (so not like The Zuck)

Re: If he has any sense

> His wealth and liberty will follow shortly.

Yes. He's also publicly criticized Putin and the other oligarchs -- all his property will be seized by Putin & co. and he's destined for a "corruption" trial and 20 years in a maximum security prison in Siberia if he doesn't GTFO of Russia.

Re: eh?

Couldn't have put it better.

Durov likes attention - after all he offered Edward Snowden a job http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/01/snowden_vkontakte_job_offer/ - so perhaps he won't be fleeing to the good old US of A. Perhaps he could hang around other immature former soviet oligarchs in London, and perhaps buy a football team.

Re: eh?

Yes but resigning (I guess as CEO or equivalent is just resigning, it still leaves him with ownership of all the shares he had. It's not clear if VK ever had an IPO or whatever and if he still had majority share control. Did he still actually own >50% of voting shares in VK and still get kicked out? Were any of his shares confiscated? It's not clear at all what happened here.

Unfortunately, I am not surprised by this....

Mr. Durov seems to have tweaked the bear's tail, and the Putin administration facilitated a shady, opaque and probably extralegal takeover of his company. Hardly the first time this has happened in modern Russia, and probably predictable considering his company's potential as a platform for communication and dissent outside of the control of the Russian government.

Mr. Durov comes across as a self-indulgent jerk, but that's hardly illegal. Indeed, if you locked up every self-indulgent jerk, there would be more than a few new CEO searches going on in Silicon Valley. So, my condolences to Mr. Durov, best wishes for his future endeavors in the badly needed secure messaging space, and I hope he lives to someday see Russia ruled by an actual honest, pluralistic government.

el reg shouldn't mess with the politics

Just wait until he shows up in London...

...to give you another example of the shining "democratic values" of the Camron-led British Gov and their ilks (ie all the "elite") when it comes to welcoming literally any mobster, blood-covered dictator, egomaniac celebrity or autocratic dirtbag if it arrives with a bunch of money to London.